Art Glossary Art Definitions

The following is the alphabetical list of some of the most popular technical terms used in art industry. The definitions of terms given here are merely an attempt to describe the basic meanings of the word and should not be taken as formal dictionary meaning.

Abstract Art

Art that does not represent reality as we see it. Rather, it takes its inspiration from the real world but uses patterns for expression. For the onlooker, these patterns represent independent relationships with no reference to the original source of inspiration.

Acrylic Paint

This paint uses a synthetic medium rather than a natural one. A synthetic paint that combines some of the properties of watercolor and oil paint. Like watercolor, it is water-soluble, it dries quickly, and it is permanent. As an expressive medium, it has a wide range of effects, from thin washes to thick impasto. Artists commonly use this as a substitute for oil since it dries quickly.

Aquatint

A method of etching that produces finely granulated tonal areas, rather than lines.

Archival Reproduction

Comprise of digitally and photographically reproduced art prints. Each image is printed with archival inks on archival photo paper, art paper, or canvas.

Archival Inks

Inks that are light, fast, water resistant, and are resin coated, thus giving a high quality result and longer life to the work when printed.

Canvas

The background woven cloth most commonly used as support in oil paintings. The most common material is linen, though cotton, hemp, or jute may also be used. Canvas must be coated with a ground and must be stretched in preparation for absorbing oil paint.

Ceramic

An artifact made of hard brittle material produced from nonmetallic minerals by firing at high temperatures.

Chalk

Various soft stones or earths used as drawing materials. The three main types most commonly used are black chalk (carbonaceous shale), red chalk (red ochre), and white chalk (made from various types of limestone). Often the terms chalk, crayon, and pastel are used interchangeably, though there are differences among them.

Charcoal

Drawing material made from charred twigs or sticks. It can be easily erased unless a fixative is used. For this reason, it has most typically been used for preparatory sketches - often to be finished with a more permanent medium.

Clay

a. Soil that is plastic when moist but hard when fired.
b. Water soaked soil; soft wet earth.

Commission

To order an original work from an artist.

Drying Oils

Fatty vegetable oils, which, when pigments are ground into them, bind them and harden upon exposure to air. The drying process does not involve loss of moisture, but rather is the result of oxidation and molecular changes. The oils most commonly used are linseed, walnut, and poppy.

Etching

Etching involves the use of an acid for creating a design on a metal plate. The way it works is that with the help of a needle the design is scratched through a coating that resists acid. The metal beneath is exposed in these scratched parts. Such a plate is then immersed in an acid bath. The acid affects only these scratched parts creating the required designs. The depth of the lines is directly proportional to the duration of time for which the plate remains immersed in the acid. If a certain part of the design needs to be emphasized, the process can be repeated for those parts. The rest of the parts that are to be protected from the acid are coated with varnish.

Fiber

An individual rod of glass of sufficiently small diameter to be flexible, having a known or approximate limit of length.

Fiberglass

Fibers similar to wool or cotton fibers, but made from glass; sometimes called fibrous glass. Glass fiber forms include cloth, yarn, mat, milled fibers, chopped strands, roving, woven roving and knitted fabrics.

Figurative Art

An art form that is inspired by the visible world. It takes visible objects as its base and then distorts or changes them to convey its message. The human from is the most common base for these paintings.

Gallery

a. A place reserved for the display of paintings and other work of art.
b. A narrow passage attached to a large room with openings into it.
c. An exterior corridor, especially in churches and secular buildings that communicates with the open air through an arcade.

Glass

A brittle, hard and non-crystalline substance. It is made by fusing silica and an alkali such as potash or soda.

Glazing

Glass or acrylic set or made to be set in a frame that protects the artwork from light, dust and other environmental hazards. There are different levels of glazing, from lightweight acrylic and regular glass to more expensive specialty products like anti-glare and anti-reflective glazing.

Gouache

An opaque watercolor, sometimes known as body color. In gouache, the pigments are bound with glue, and the admixture of white pigment produces the lighter tones. While the effect is less luminous than transparent watercolor, it is easier to handle because it can be painted over.

Ground

The prepared surface on which color is laid and which is applied to a canvas, panel or other support before a picture is begun. The primary purpose of a ground is to isolate the paint from the support to prevent chemical interaction, and to allow a more uniform and satisfactory surface for painting. The consistency of a ground is of utmost importance so an artist can predict the effects of paint color and texture on the surface.

Gum

Sticky substance obtained from certain shrubs or trees that are the normal medium of watercolor paints, pastels, and tempera. Gum Arabic, from a species of acacia, is most commonly used.

Impasto

The effect created by the application by brush or other instrument of thick opaque paint, such as oils or certain types of acrylic.

Intaglio

Technique in which a design is engraved or incised on glass, ceramics, or the like, beneath the surface of the material. Etching, therefore, is a form of intaglio printing.

Landscape Art

This refers to the physical size of the painting where the width is greater than the height. It owes its name to the various representations of landscape that typically have such proportions.

Linocut

A type of print, introduced at the beginning of the 20th century, which is produced from a thick piece of linoleum. An offshoot of woodcuts, linocuts are relatively easier to work with, as the softer and more even surface of linoleum is easier to cut and control than wood. A technique commonly taught in art schools, artists such as Matisse and Picasso, also created famous works with its application.

Lithograph

A greasy material is used to make a drawing on a zinc plate or limestone block. The plate is then wet and a greasy ink are applied to it. The ink sticks only to the lines that have been drawn. A moist paper is applied to the plate and a special press is used to rub the paper all over to make a print or a lithograph.

Matting

Decorative board used in framing that provides contrast between the image and the moulding. Most matting is acid-free and is an important part of the conservation framing technique.

Medium

During painting, the pigment that is being used to get the required color has to be suspended in some liquid. This liquid is called the medium. For example, an oil painting would mean when linseed oil is used as the medium. Medium also refers to the substance used by an artist for giving expression to his art. Like, a sculptor uses stone as his medium of expression.

Mixed Media

A work in which more than one technique or medium of representation is featured in a work of art.

Mold

a. The tool from which a plastics part is made and from which it takes its form.
b. The process by which a plastic part is made.
c. To shape plastics parts by heat and pressure.
d. The assembly of all components that function collectively in the molding process.

Moulding

A piece of wood, plastic, metal, or other material used to frame a piece of art.

Mural

A painting that is applied to a wall surface.

Oil Paint

Paints in which drying oils (such as linseed or walnut oil) have pigments ground into them. The flexibility, durability, and evolution of oil paint technique account for its immense popularity the world over among both artists and art consumers.

Oil Glazes

This is a mixed technique requiring alternate applications of oil medium and emulsion, and is much slower than classical glazing techniques. It allows for incredibly limpid and pure color unattainable by almost any other technique. These techniques were used by painters of the Flemish Renaissance and not only are their colors still extremely vibrant, but their paintings can be washed by sponge to this day.

Original Painting

a. Graphic art consisting of an artistic composition made by applying paints to a surface.
b. A one-of-a-kind image created by an artist that often sells for several thousands of rupees.

Palette

a. A flat tray on which an artist spreads out and mixes his colors while painting.
b. This term has also come to be used as an adjective for describing a particular artist's choice of colors.

Pastel

A medium used for drawing or painting, pastel is a stick of color made from powdered pigment mixed with just enough resin or gum for binding. The main difference between pastel and other kinds of paint media (such as oils) is that with the latter, the effect of the color when applied is different from what it is when dry. This is not true of pastels, the effect of the color is known before application. Pastels were developed in Italy in the 16th century, as an offshoot from chalk drawings. Pastels are best protected under glass.

Pencil

a. It used to mean an artist's brush.
b. In the present day context, it represents a drawing or writing instrument made by encasing a stick of graphite in wood or metal.

Plaster of Paris

A kind of plaster that is popularly used for carving and making casts. It is made up of dehydrated gypsum and is mixed with water.

Portrait Art

This refers to the physical size of the painting where the height is greater than the width. The upper torso of the human form is the most common subject for these paintings.

Print

This represents an image of which many copies are present. The image is typically taken from a silk screen, a woodblock, or the negative of a photograph.

Profile

a. The side-wise appearance of a person's face.
b. The outline of a building or an object.

Realism

a. Art that aims at producing an exact replication of reality.
b. It also represents a particular phase of art in 19th century France. During this phase, the French artists like Courbet chose to draw inspiration from what they saw and experienced in their immediate surroundings and expressed them as is without romanticizing their experience. The impact of photography was responsible for the advent of this art form.

Relief

A term, most typically applied to sculpture, describing a surface projecting from a background surface, rather than freely standing. Relief etching is achieved by drawing a design in acid-resisting varnish on a plate; thereafter, the plate is immersed in acid, eating away the unprotected parts, so the design stands in relief. Woodcut blocks also employ relief printing.

Reproduction

An original work of art that has been replicated by photographic or other methods.

Resin

A material, generally a polymer, that has an indefinite and often high molecular weight and a softening or melting range and exhibits a tendency to flow when it is subjected to stress. Resins are used as the matrices to bind together the reinforcement in material in composites.

Sculpture

a. A three dimensional work of plastic art.
b. Making figures or designs in three dimensions.
c. Create by shaping stone or wood or any other hard material.

Seascape / Marine Art

A type of painting that represents the sea and all that goes with it, ships included. Typical representations include depiction of a battle at sea or some such historical event.

Serigraphy

A method of making print that has its base in stenciling. A screen made of silk is used for this purpose. The ink or paint that is to be used is brushed through this screen to obtain the design.

Substrate

The canvas, paper, or other material on which the image is printed.

Tempera

Tempera is a medium that is used for suspending the pigment. Traditionally, tempera is made by using eggs or egg yolk. However, this is not a rigid rule. Other substances such as milk, glue, or sap of the fig tree are also used at times.

Tertiary Color

A color that is obtained by mixing in any proportion two of the three secondary colors - orange, violet and green. Consequently, it contains a bit of each of the primary colors.

Texture

a. It represents the nature of the surface of a painting or sculpture.
b. This term is also applied to the quality of an artists work such as his brush strokes, etc.

Varnish

This is used as a protective coating. It consists of a resin dissolved in a medium. It can also carry the pigment and hence act as paint.

Watercolor

This is a transparent paint made using water-soluble elements. Water is used as the medium here and the pigment and binder, both of which are water-soluble are combined to obtain transparent paint.

Woodcut

A print technique achieved by first drawing the design on the smooth, flat surface of a wood block, then cutting away with knife and gouges, the parts to be white in the print. This, in effect, leaves the design in relief.